Before the baby comes

I don't remember if I've written about this before or not, so bear with me if you get a sense of deja vu. While life eventually reaches a settled place after Baby is born, it could be months before you start feeling as though you can handle any tasks outside of basic survival for you and your family. This is why it is SO important to get as much stuff done well before your due date. Things like moving, painting, landscaping, starting a new business; none of this should be contenplated post partum. Our plan for our first baby was buy a house BEFORE getting pregnant (done, I went off of birth control the week after we moved) and get all decorating, painting, planting, etc. done before the baby came. It mostly worked out. We spent the first few months painting (we like color), the summer working on the yard (first baby was born the beginning of September). Unfortunately, we were so busy, that it wasn't until the first weekend in September that we finally finished our list. That weekend we had a garage sale, my husband got his bike serviced, I took the cat to the vet and bought three months worth of food and litter for her, did five loads of laundry, my husband also mowed, weed wacked and stained our new fence (that he had built a couple of weeks before). Then I went into labor. I never had a second to relax (the crazy job didn't help at all with this).

This time around, we have until the end of June to get everything done so I have two months to relax. This means that we've been landscaping like crazy (it's never really done, and we have a tiny backyard, too!). The next project is built-in bookcases for our living room. Then we need to furnish #1's room with new furniture so we can move his baby stuff into the new nursery (at least it's already painted!). There will always be last minute stuff to take care of, but I am bound and determined to enjoy the most miserable part of THIS pregnancy!